Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

Just A Bad Day...I'll Get Over It.

I wake up and serve breakfast. My mom likes her's warmed up and her tea hot. She then settles in front of the TV, even though I try to get her to do something, a few movements...anything but sit there waiting for me to bring lunch.

"Lift your arms above your head ten times, mom." But exercise is too hard now. It's much easier to watch reruns she's seen a hundred times before, with the volume turned up to a point where it grates upon my soul.

I've tried pushing her to do some movements, but then I become resentful. I've tried coaxing, but it goes in one ear and out the other.

It's become easier for me to just let her sit there. If she doesn't care, why should I? I've cared for so long that I can't even remember what it is to care about me. I've given everything I have, and now, there's not much left.

I want to run away, but I am committed. I want to have fun...like I used to do. I took drugs because it was the only joy I felt. So I could forget for a few brief moments where I was. So I would forget what life might be like if I didn't have to wait, hand and foot, on this person who has become so reliant upon me that she cannot do without me.

With no support from family members and no help from the community. To take a week off is a nightmare. All the arrangements that must be put in place, forms and medications and timing booking a holiday in conjunction with booking a facility with a bed available. Hotels require lot's of notice and aged care facilities won't offer anything beyond the next week or two.

And Covid 19 has isolated me even further. I have even considered if life is even worth living. But then someone will have to step up...someone will need to feed her...get a bucket and sponge and clean the floor when she doesn't make it to the toilet. Someone will have to care...because I am almost out.

At least before, when I took drugs, I was numb...and now, I am starting to remember why I did.

Nobody told me that being a caregiver would destroy me, yet, that is what it is doing.